Rosemary Jones: Crypt of the Moaning Diamond

"I walked the length of the western wall," said Ivy, "the day my company came here and two nights ago. There is a gate there."

"We know," said Enguerrand. "It is on the map."

"The map doesn't show the size," said Ivy, looking at him with pity. "It's a nightsoil gate. One horse wide, and barely that. If you breach it, you still need to go in one by one. A big orc with a large axe could hold that gate forever. He will just pile your dead in the doorway."

"Then we will use ladders to scale the walls," said Enguerrand.

Ivy shook her head. "There are old holdings on the top of that wall." Seeing everyone but the Thultyrl and the Pearl giving her puzzled stares, she sketched in the air the shape of the wooden-roofed balconies that overhung the western wall. "There will be arrow slits in the floors," she explained. "They shoot straight down on your ladders. It will be bloody fighting to climb over that wall."

"Then what do you suggest, lady?" asked the Thultyrl, who obviously had considered this drawback. His face was too calm in Ivy's judgment for this setback to be a surprise.

"Burn the holdings if you can."

"Fire arrows," suggested the Pearl.

"No spells?" asked the Thultyrl. The Pearl shook her head and spread her hands wide, displaying them as empty. Ivy wondered why so powerful a mage (by reputation if not demonstration) could not throw a little fire here and there. Certainly Archlis had been almost careless with his power over the past few weeks.

"They may have thought of that and laid some protection into the wood. Then again, they are orcs, never the cleverest at defensive warfare," advised Ivy. "But expect to lose half your force right there. The holdings may burn, but the wall is stone, and it will hold. Also, such a fire will bring everyone running from the other towers. Best to follow the plan we gave you: wait for the wall to fall down and make your charge into Tsurlagol across the fallen broken bodies of your enemies." It was a stirring speech, and with luck none of the Procampans would recognize that the last few words came straight from the chorus of one of her mother's favorite ballads.

"Then bring that wall down," said the Thultyrl, sitting straighter and wincing as the movement pulled on his unhealed wound. "At sunset, in two days time. We have decided."

The Thultyrl has decided. The Thultyrl has decided. The refrain echoed through Ivy's head as she marched back down the hill, trailed by a silent Sanval.

"The Thultyrl may have decided," said Ivy, "but we're the ones who have to dig! Can't be done. Not that fast. Not safely. But maybe. If Gunderal can speed up the underground water. Mumchance would know. There might be old tunnels on that side. We could use those. If Zuzzara ever finds them. Can't be done. Could be done. The Thultyrl has decided! Oh, blast!"

She was arguing with herself because Sanval was not saying a word. In fact, he seemed stunned into even deeper silence than before. He had stayed completely rigid in his burnished armor the whole time they had been in the Thultyrl's tent. Then the Thultyrl had addressed him directly.

"We regret," the Thultyrl had said to him, "that we must refuse your request to rejoin Enguerrand's regiment. We need your services as assigned for two more days. To bring us word, you understand, of the success or failure of this lady's work." The Thultyrl nodded at Ivy.

Sanval had bowed, very deeply, to his ruler. Ivy thought that she had heard him sigh, but it had been a very, very soft sigh.

But it was the Pearl who apparently had mystified Sanval. She waited until they had left the Thultyrl's presence and then stopped them.

"You will find your glory easier underground than in Enguerrand's company," the Pearl said to Sanval. "If you remember who you are and forget your vanity." Sanval stared at the white-haired woman and did not seem to know what to say to her.

The Pearl turned to Ivy next. She picked up one of Ivy's gauntlets. The armored glove had slipped from where Ivy had tucked it into her belt and had fallen to the ground. The Pearl handed the gauntlet back to her, fingering the little silver token sewn onto the leather cuff. The token felt surprisingly warm to Ivy when she slid the glove back under her belt.

"You need no prophecy from me. You have always known your way and are wise enough to trust your luck. Continue to believe in your luck when you make your plans," said the Hamayarch of Procampur. Then the Pearl glanced down and smiled faintly. "But I would suggest that you clean your boots." The Pearl rustled back inside the silk-draped pavilion.

Now, marching down the hill, Ivy muttered to herself, which meant she was loud enough for only Sanval to hear clearly. "If she can see the future, I wouldn't mind knowing it. I can take a prophecy as well as the next woman. It's not like my mother or my father wasn't always meddling in some great magic. There were long prophecies, short prophecies, incredibly cryptic prophecies all naming one or the other at some time. But do I get some prediction of glory? Of course not! The woman just tells me to clean my boots. What is wrong with my boots?"

"They have camel dung on them," said Sanval from behind her. "On the back."

Ivy ground to a halt. She pulled up one foot and twisted it to look at the back of her boot. She put her foot down slowly. She pulled up the other leg and looked at the back of that boot. Both of them were liberally splashed with dung. She had walked through the Thultyrl's silk-lined, wool-carpeted, incense-scented pavilion with dung-mired boots. Even for her, that was a bit much. No wonder Beriall had been sniffing so loudly today.

"I would have told you," said Sanval, "but you kept singing that song."

Ivy thought about hitting him. But they were still in the Procampur section of the camp, and somebody was sure to make a fuss if she knocked down a Procampur officer and ground his face in the dust.

"Come on," she said. "I need to tell the others that they have two days to do a tenday job. The Thultyrl has decided."

But even as she hurried toward the tunnel, she wondered if she could make good on her promise. No matter how fast the Siegebreakers dug, she was not at all sure that they could bring down the wall in time to save the Thultyrl's troops from disaster.

Once Ivy arrived at the site of the tunnel, she considered that meeting the Thultyrl's deadline might be easier if anyone were actually digging. Instead, the Siegebreakers were resting in the shade of a small grove of trees. Out of the corner of her eye, Ivy caught a glimpse of a slight disturbance on Sanval's handsome features before his face smoothed into its usual stoic expression.

"So what do you think is wrong?" huffed Ivy at Sanval, because it was easier to be mad at him than start yelling at her friends.

"Pardon?" said Sanval, startled enough to turn his head so she could see his face clearly under the brim of his shining helmet.

"You disapprove of something. I'm an excellent judge of those non-expressions of yours," Ivy replied.

"Really?" His tone was as even and bland as his face.

"Quarter turn down of the left corner of the lips: deep disapproval from Captain Sanval."

Sanval choked slightly at her retort, and the recently criticized left corner of his lips quirked up for moment. "They are not in armor," he observed. "This far from camp, that is not well advised."

"They are digging a hole in the ground, which is a little hard to do in full kit," said Ivy, ignoring the fact that she had been shouting only last night that they were too close to the walls to fully ignore all precautions. Of course, she never felt comfortable in a war camp without armor. Besides, her gear hid the stains on her shirt and breeches. Sanval was fully armored too, but then he seemed to live in halfplate (and live in it without sweating or feeling the weight, which was most unfair). Ivy suspected that even the shirt underneath the plate was gleaming white.